WT Business Beat

By Nick Wakeman

Microsoft adds security layers to Outlook mobile

Microsoft has updated the security for its Outlook mobile architecture so that government users can use it on their own mobile devices.

Outlook for iOS and Android both meet the security and compliance needs of Office 365 U.S. Government Community Cloud High and Defense Department customers.

All government customers can now use Outlook mobile, the company said in a blog posting today.

The company updated the Outlook mobile architecture to use a native Microsoft sync technology, which they say will reduce latency and provide access to new enterprise-grade features such as S/MIME as they are introduced over the coming months.

These changes also let customers use Outlook mobile with Azure Active Directory to security manage email and calendar data on their mobile devices.

The Defense Department is in the midst of competing a multi-billion dollar contract known as "DEOS" for cloud-based commercial email and collaboration tools. This security upgrade should strengthen Microsoft’s ability to compete for that contract.

Microsoft's blog posting includes a Q&A section that explores various technical questions such as what changes were made to the architecture and how customers should prepare. There also are explanations about how Outlook mobile interacts with Azure Government and the Government Community cloud.